On the constitutive relations of materials with evolving microstructure due to microcracking

This paper discusses the practical implementation of a thermodynamically ba sed procedure for the derivation of the effective nonlinear constitutive re lations for composites with evolving microstructure. Examples of the proced ure for the case of an elastic periodic composite with several growing crac ks are presented. These examples are intended to show how the use of this p rocedure differs from the traditional global-local analysis approach and ho w well suited it is for use with general purpose structural analysis packag es. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.